Ch apter 6 Deviance and Social Control

M06_HENS8373_Ch06_1-32.indd 2 26/01/12 5:18 AM In just a few moments I was to meet my first Yanomamö, my first primitive man. What would it be like? . . . I looked up [from my canoe] and gasped when I saw a dozen burly, naked, filthy, hideous men staring at us down the shafts of their drawn arrows. Immense wads of green tobacco were stuck between their lower teeth and lips, making them look even more hideous, and strands of dark-green slime dripped or hung from their noses. We arrived at the village while the men were blowing a hallu- cinogenic drug up their noses. One of the side effects of the drug is a runny nose. The mucus is always saturated with the green powder, and the Indians usually let it run freely from their nostrils. . . . I just sat there holding my notebook, helpless and pathetic. . . . The whole situation was depressing, and I wondered why I ever decided to switch from civil engineering to anthropology in the first place. . . . [Soon] I was covered with red pigment, the result of a dozen or so complete examinations. . . . These examinations capped an oth- erwise grim day. The Indians They would “clean” would blow their noses into “ their hands, flick as much their hands by spitting of the mucus off that would slimy tobacco juice separate in a snap of the wrist, wipe the residue into into them. their hair, and then care- ” fully examine my face, arms, legs, hair, and the contents of my pockets. I said [in their language], “Your hands are dirty”; my comments were met by the Indians in the following way: they would “clean” their hands by spitting a quantity of slimy tobacco juice into them, rub them together, and then proceed with the examination.

This is how Napoleon Chagnon describes the culture shock he felt when he met the Yanomamö tribe of the rain forests of Brazil. His ensuing months of fieldwork continued to bring surprise after surprise, and often Chagnon (1977) could hardly believe his eyes—or his nose.

Arizona

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If you were to list the deviant behaviors of the Yanomamö, what would you include? The way they appear naked in public? Use hallucinogenic drugs? Let mucus hang from their noses? Or the way they rub hands filled with mucus, spittle, and tobacco juice over a frightened stranger who doesn’t dare to protest? Perhaps. But it isn’t this simple, for as we shall see, deviance is relative. What Is Deviance? Sociologists use the term deviance to refer to any violation of norms, whether the infraction is as minor as driving over the speed limit, as serious as murder, or as humorous as Chagnon’s encounter with the Yanomamö. This deceptively simple definition takes us to the heart of the sociological perspective on deviance, which sociologist Howard S. Becker (1966) described this way: It is not the act itself, but the reactions to the act, that make something deviant. What Chagnon saw disturbed him, but to the Yanomamö those same behaviors represented normal, everyday life. What was deviant to Chagnon was conformist to the Yanomamö. From their viewpoint, you should check out strangers the way they did—and nakedness is good, as are hallucinogenic drugs. And it is natural to let mucus flow. The Relativity of Deviance. Chagnon’s abrupt introduction to the Yanomamö allows us to see the relativity of deviance, a major point made by symbolic interactionists. Because different groups have different norms, what is deviant to some is not deviant to others. This principle applies not just to cultures but also to groups within the same society. Look at the photo on this page and the one on page 6-6. We explore this idea further in the Cultural Diversity box on the next page. This principle also applies to a specific form of deviance known as crime, the violation of rules that have been written into law. In the extreme, an act that is applauded by one group may be so despised I took this photo on the outskirts of by another group that it is punishable by death. Making a huge profit Hyderabad, India. Is this man deviant? on business deals is one example. Americans who do this are admired. Like Donald If this were a U.S. street, he would be. Trump and Warren Buffet, they may even write books about their exploits. In China, But here? No houses have running however, until recently this same act was considered a crime called profiteering. Those water in his neighborhood, and the found guilty were hanged in a public square as a lesson to all. men, women, and children bathe at the neighborhood water pump. This A Neutral Term. Unlike the general public, sociologists use the term deviance non- man, then, would not be deviant in judgmentally, to refer to any act to which people respond negatively. When sociologists this culture. And yet he is actually mugging for my camera, making the use this term, it does not mean that they agree that an act is bad, just that people judge three bystanders laugh. Does this it negatively. To sociologists, then, all of us are deviants of one sort or another, for we additional factor make this a scene of all violate norms from time to time. deviance? Stigma. To be considered deviant, a person does not even have to do anything. Sociologist Erving Goffman (1963) used the term stigma to refer to characteristics that dis- credit people. These include violations of norms of appearance (a facial birthmark, a huge nose or ears) and norms of ability (blindness, deafness, mental handicaps). Also included are involuntary memberships, such as being a victim of AIDS or the brother of a rapist. The stigma can become a person’s master status, defining him or her as deviant. Recall from Chapter 4 that a master status cuts across all other statuses that a person occupies. How Norms Make Social Life Possible No human group can exist without norms, for norms make social life possible by making behavior predictable. What would life be like if you could not predict what others would do? Imagine for a moment that you have gone to a store to purchase milk:

What is deviance? Why is deviance relative? How do norms make social life possible?

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Cultural Diversity around the World Human Sexuality in Cross-Cultural Perspective

Human sexuality illustrates how a group’s definition of an act, not the act itself, determines whether it will be considered deviant. Let’s look at some examples reported by anthro- pologist Robert Edgerton (1976). Norms of sexual behavior vary so widely around the world that what is considered normal in one society may Kenya be considered deviant in another. In Kenya, a group called the Pokot place high emphasis on sexual pleasure, and they expect that both a husband and wife will reach orgasm. If a husband does not satisfy his wife, he is in trouble—especially if she thinks that his failure is because of adultery. If this is so, the wife and her female friends will sneak up on her husband when he is asleep. The Mexico women will tie him up, shout obscenities at him, beat him, and then urinate on him. Before releasing him, as a final gesture of their contempt they will slaughter and eat his favorite ox. The husband’s hours of painful humiliation are intended to make him more dutiful concerning his wife’s conjugal rights. People can also become deviants for following for if this virtuous woman had had an affair—and kept their group’s ideal norms instead of its real her mouth shut—she would not have become a norms. As with many groups, the Zapotec deviant. Clearly, real norms can conflict with Indians of Mexico profess that sexual ideal norms—another illustration of the gap relations should take place exclusively between ideal and real culture. between husband and wife. However, the Zapotec also have a covert norm,

an unspoken understanding, that mar- For↑ Your Consideration ried people will have affairs, but that How do the behaviors of the Pokot they will be discreet about them. In one wives and husbands mentioned here Zapotec community, the only person who look from the perspective of U.S. norms? did not have an extramarital affair was What are those U.S. norms? What norms condemned by everyone in the village. did the Zapotec woman break? (We The reason was not that she did not have discussed this concept in Chapter 2.) an affair but that she told the other wives the names of the women their husbands were sleeping with. It is an interesting case, A Pokot married woman, Kenya

Suppose the clerk says, “I won’t sell you any milk. We’re overstocked with soda, and I’m not going to sell anyone milk until our soda inventory is reduced.” You don’t like it, but you decide to buy a case of soda. At the checkout, the clerk says, “I hope you don’t mind, but there’s a $5 service charge on every fifteenth customer.” You, of course, are the fifteenth. Just as you start to leave, another clerk stops you and says, “We’re not working any- more. We decided to have a party.” Suddenly a CD player begins to blast, and everyone in the store begins to dance. “Oh, good, you’ve brought the soda,” says a different clerk, who takes your package and passes sodas all around.

Life is not like this, of course. You can depend on grocery clerks to sell you milk. You can also depend on paying the same price as everyone else and not being forced to attend a party in the store. Why can you depend on this? Because we are socialized to follow norms, to play the basic roles that society assigns to us.

How do ideal and real norms work together in determining what is deviant?

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Without norms, we would have social chaos. Norms lay out the basic guidelines for how we should play our roles and interact with others. In short, norms bring about social order, a group’s customary social arrangements. Our lives are based on these arrangements, which is why deviance often is perceived as threatening: Deviance undermines predictability, the foundation of social life. Consequently, human groups develop a system of social control—formal and informal means of enforcing norms. At the center of social control are sanctions.

Sanctions As we discussed in Chapter 2, people do not enforce folkways strictly, but they become upset when people break mores (MO-rays). Expressions of disapproval for deviance, called negative sanctions, range from frowns and gossip for breaking folkways to imprisonment and death for breaking mores. In general, the more seriously the group takes a norm, the harsher the penalty for violating it. In contrast, positive sanctions—from smiles to formal awards—are used to reward people for conforming to norms. Getting a raise is a positive sanction; being fired is a negative sanction. Getting anA in intro to sociology is a posi- tive sanction; getting an F is a negative one. Most negative sanctions are informal. You might stare if you observe someone dressed in what you consider to be inappropriate clothing, or you might gossip if a married person you know spends the night with someone other than his or her Violating background assumptions is a spouse. Whether you consider the breaking of a norm merely an amusing matter that common form of deviance. Although we have no explicit rule that says, “Do warrants no sanction or a serious infraction that does, however, depends on your perspec- not put snakes through your nose,” tive. Let’s suppose that a woman appears at your college graduation in a bikini. You might we all know that it exists (perhaps as a stare, laugh, and nudge the person next to you, but if this is your mother, you are likely subcategory of “Don’t do strange things to feel that different sanctions are appropriate. Similarly, if it is your father who spends the in public”). Is this act also deviant for night with an 18-year-old college freshman, you are likely to do more than gossip. this man in Chennai, India? In Sum: In sociology, the term deviance refers to all violations of social rules, regard- less of their seriousness. The term is neutral, not a judgment about the behavior. Deviance is relative, for what is deviant in one group may be conformist in another. Consequently, we must consider deviance from within a group’s own framework, for it is their meanings that underlie their behavior.

Competing Explanations of Deviance: Sociobiology, Psychology, and Sociology If social life is to exist, norms are essential. So why do people violate them? To better understand the reasons, it is useful to know how sociological explanations differ from biological and psychological ones. Biosocial Explanations. Sociobiologists explain deviance by looking for answers within individuals. They assume that genetic predispositions lead people to such behaviors as juvenile delinquency and crime (Lombroso 1911; Wilson and Herrnstein 1985; Goozen et al. 2007). An early explanation was that men with an extra Y chromosome (the “XYY” theory) were more likely to become criminals. Another was that people with “squarish, muscular” bodies were more likely to commit street crime—acts such as mugging,­ rape, and burglary. These theories were abandoned when research did not support­ them. With advances in the study of genetics, biosocial explanations are being proposed to explain differences in crime by age (juvenile delinquency), sex, race, and social class (Walsh and Beaver 2009). The basic explanation is that over the millennia people with certain characteristics were more likely to survive than were people with different char- acteristics. As a result, different groups today inherit different propensities (tendencies) for empathy, self-control, and risk-taking. A universal finding is that in all known societies men commit more violent crimes than women do. There are no exceptions. Here is how sociobiologists explain this. It took only a

How are norms and sanctions essential for maintaining the social order?

M06_HENS8373_Ch06_1-32.indd 6 26/01/12 5:18 AM few pelvic thrusts for men to pass on their genes. After that, they could leave if they wanted to. The women, in contrast, had to carry, birth, and nurture the children. Women who were more empathetic (inclined to nurture their children) engaged in less dangerous behav- ior. These women passed genes for more empathy, greater self-control, and less risk-taking to their female children. As a result, all over the world, men engage in more violent behav- ior, which comes from their lesser empathy, lower self-control, and greater tendency for taking risks. Biosocial theorists stress that deviant behavior does not depend on genes alone. Our inherited propensities (the bio part) are modified and stimulated by our environment (the social part). Biosocial research is promising and holds the potential of opening a new understanding of deviance. Psychological Explanations. Psychologists focus on abnormalities within the indi- vidual. Instead of genes, they examine what are called personality disorders. Their supposition is that deviating individuals have deviating personalities (Barnes 2001; Mayer 2007) and that subconscious motives drive people to deviance. Researchers have never found a specific childhood experience to be invariably linked with deviance. For example, some children who had “bad toilet training,” ­“suffocating mothers,” or “emotionally aloof fathers” do become embezzling bookkeepers—but others become good accountants. Just as college students and police officers represent a variety of bad—and good—childhood experiences, so do deviants. Similarly, people with “suppressed anger” can become freeway snip- ers or military heroes—or anything else. In short, there is no inevitable outcome of Every society has boundaries that any childhood experience. Deviance is not associated with any particular personality. divide what is considered socially acceptable from what is not Socialogical Explanations. Sociologists, in contrast with both sociobiologists and acceptable. Lady Gaga has made her psychologists, search for factors outside the individual. They look for social influences that claim to fame by challenging those “recruit” people to break norms. To account for why people commit crimes, for example, boundaries. sociologists examine such external influences as socialization, membership in subcultures, and social class. Social class, a concept that we will discuss in depth in Chapter 8, refers to people’s relative standing in terms of education, occupation, and especially income and wealth. To explain deviance, sociologists apply the three sociological perspectives—symbolic interactionism, functionalism, and conflict theory. Let’s compare these three explanations.

The Symbolic Interactionist Perspective As we examine symbolic interactionism, it will become more evident why sociologists are not satisfied with explanations that are rooted in sociobiology or psychology. A basic principle of symbolic interactionism is that we are thinking beings who act according to how we interpret situations. Let’s consider how our membership in groups influences how we view life and, from there, our behavior. Differential Association Theory The Theory. Going directly against the idea that biology or personality is the source of deviance, sociologists stress our experiences in groups (Deflem 2006; Chambliss 1973/2012). Consider an extreme: boys and girls who join street gangs and those who join the Scouts. Obviously, each will learn different attitudes and behaviors concerning deviance and conformity. Edwin Sutherland coined the term differential association to indicate this: From the different groups we associate with, we learn to deviate from or conform to society’s norms (Sutherland 1924, 1947; McCarthy 2011). Sutherland’s theory is more complicated than this, but he basically said that the dif- ferent groups with which we associate (our “differential association”) give us messages about conformity and deviance. We may receive mixed messages, but we end up with more of one than the other (an “excess of definitions,” as Sutherland put it). The end result is an imbalance—attitudes that tilt us in one direction or another. Consequently, we learn to either conform or to deviate.

Can you contrast biosocial, psychological, and sociological explanations of deviance?

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Watch Families. Since our family is so important for teaching us attitudes, it probably is obvious Motherhood Manifesto to you that the family makes a big difference in whether we learn deviance or conformity. on mysoclab.com Researchers have confirmed this informal observation. Of the many confirming studies, this one stands out: Of all prison inmates across the United States, about half have a father, mother, brother, sister, or spouse who has served time in prison (Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 2003: Table 6.0011; Glaze and Maruschak 2008: Table 11). In short, ­families that are involved in crime tend to set their children on a lawbreaking path. Friends, Neighborhoods, and Subcultures. Most people don’t know the term dif- ferential association, but they do know how it works. Most parents want to move out of “bad” neighborhoods because they know that if their kids have delinquent friends, they are likely to become delinquent, too. Sociological research also supports this common observation (Miller 1958; Chung and Steinberg 2006; Church et al. 2009). In some neighborhoods, violence is so woven into the subculture that even a wrong glance can mean your death (“Why you lookin’ at me?”) (Gardiner and Fox 2010). If the neighbors feel that a victim deserved to be killed, they refuse to testify because “he got what was coming to him” (Kubrin and Weitzer 2003). Killing can even be viewed as honorable:

Sociologist Ruth Horowitz (1983, 2005), who did participant observation in a lower-class Chicano neighborhood in Chicago, discovered how the concept of “honor” propels young men to deviance. The formula is simple. “A real man has honor. An insult is a threat to one’s honor. Therefore, not to stand up to someone is to be less than a real man.” Now suppose you are a young man growing up in this neighborhood. You likely would do a fair amount of fighting, for you would interpret many things as attacks on your honor. You might even carry a knife or a gun, for words and fists wouldn’t always be suf- ficient. Along with members of your group, you would define fighting, knifing, and shoot- ing quite differently from the way most people do. Members of the Mafia also intertwine ideas of manliness with killing. For them,to kill is a measure of their manhood. If a Mafia member were to seduce thecapo ’s wife or girlfriend, for example, the seduction would slash at the capo’s manliness and honor. The only course open would be direct retaliation. The offender’s body would be found with his penis stuffed in his mouth. However, not all killings are accorded the same respect, for “the more awe- some and potent the victim, the more worthy and meritorious the killer” (Arlacchi 1980). From this example, you can see how relative deviance is. Although killing is deviant to mainstream society, for members of the Mafia,not to kill after certain rules are bro- ken is the deviant act. Prison or Freedom? As was mentioned in Chapter 3, an issue that comes up To experience a sense over and over again in sociology is whether we are prisoners of socialization. of belonging is a Symbolic interactionists stress that we are not mere pawns in the hands of basic human need. Membership in groups others. We are not destined to think and act as our groups dictate. Rather, is a primary way that we help to produce our own orientations­ to life. By joining one group rather people meet this than another (differential association), for example, we help to shape the need. Regardless of self. For instance, one college student may join a feminist group that is try- the orientation of ing to change the treatment of women in college, while another associates the group—whether to conformity, as with with women who shoplift on weekends. Their choices point them in differ- the Girl Scouts, or to ent directions. The one who joins the feminist group may develop an even deviance, as with the greater interest in producing social change, while the one who associates Mafia—the process is with shoplifters may become even more oriented toward criminal activities. the same. Control Theory Do you ever feel the urge to do something that you know you shouldn’t, even something that would get you in trouble? Most of us fight tempta- tions to break society’s norms. We find that we have to stifle things inside us—urges, hostilities, raunchy desires of various sorts. And most of the time, we manage to keep ourselves out of trouble.

What is differential association theory? How do family and friends fit into this theory?

M06_HENS8373_Ch06_1-32.indd 8 26/01/12 5:18 AM The basic question that control theory tries to answer is, With the desire to deviate so common, why don’t we all just “bust loose”?

The Theory. Sociologist Walter Reckless (1973), who developed control theory, stressed that two control systems work against our motivations to devi- ate. Our inner controls include our internalized morality—conscience, religious principles, ideas of right and wrong. Inner controls also include fears of punish- ment, feelings of integrity, and the desire to be a “good” person (Hirschi 1969; McShane and Williams 2007). Our outer controls consist of people—such as fam- ily, friends, and the police—who influence us not to ­deviate. The stronger our bonds are with society, the more effective our inner controls are (Hirschi 1969). These bonds are based on attachments (our affection and respect for people who conform to mainstream norms), commitments (having a stake in society that you don’t want to risk, such as your place in your family, being a college student, or having a job), involvements (participating in approved activi- ties), and beliefs (convictions that certain actions are wrong). This theory can be summarized as self-control, says sociologist Travis Hirschi. The key to learning strong self-control is socialization, especially in childhood. Parents help their children to develop self-control by supervising them and punishing their deviant acts (Gottfredson and Hirschi 1990; Church et al. 2009). They sometimes use shame to keep their children in line. You probably had that forefinger shaken at you. I cer- tainly recall it aimed at me. Do you think that more use of shaming, discussed in the Down- The social control of deviance takes many forms, including the actions of to-Earth Sociology box on the next page, could help increase people’s internal controls? the police. Being arrested here is a Applying Control Theory. Florida woman accused of prostitution.

Suppose that some friends invite you to go to a nightclub with them. When you get there, you notice that everyone seems unusually happy—almost giddy. They seem to be euphoric in their animated conversations and dancing. Your friends tell you that almost every- one here has taken the drug Ecstasy, and they invite you to take some with them. What do you do? Let’s not explore the question of whether taking Ecstasy in this setting is a devi- ant or a conforming act. This is a separate issue. Instead, concentrate on the pushes and pulls you would feel. The pushes toward taking the drug: your friends, the set- ting, and perhaps­ your curiosity. Then there are your inner controls—those inner voices of your conscience and your parents, perhaps of your teachers, as well as your fears of arrest and the dangers you’ve heard about illegal drugs. There are also the outer controls—perhaps the uniformed security guard looking in your direction. So, what did you decide? Which was stronger: your inner and outer controls or the pushes and pulls toward taking the drug? It is you who can best weigh these forces, for they differ with each of us. This little example puts us at the center of what control theory is all about. Labeling Theory

Suppose for one undesirable moment that people around you thought of you as a “whore,” a “pervert,” or a “cheat.” (Pick one.) What power such a reputation would have—both on how others would see you and on how you would see yourself. How about if you became known as “very intelligent,” “gentle and understanding,” or “honest to the core”? (Choose How powerful are labels? Consider Mel Gibson. Previously, he had a one.) You can see that such a reputation would give people different expectations of your sterling reputation (a label) as an actor character and behavior. and film maker. After anti-Semitic rants when stopped for drunk driving and, This is what labeling theory focuses on, the significance of reputations, how they help later, threats to a pregnant girlfriend, set us on paths that propel us into deviance or divert us away from it. Gibson’s reputation changed abruptly. How do you think his new label will Rejecting Labels: How People Neutralize Deviance. Not many of us want to be affect his life? Do you think Gibson can called “whore,” “pervert,” or “cheat.” We resist negative labels, even lesser ones than rescue his reputation?

What is control theory? How do internal and external controls work in your life?

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Down-to-Earth Sociology

Shaming: Making a Comeback?

haming can be effective, especially when members of banished from the group physically, she was banished a primary group use it. In some communities, where morally; her degradation ceremony proclaimed her a moral Sthe individual’s reputation was at stake, shaming was outcast from the community. The scarlet A marked her as the centerpiece of the enforcement of norms. Violators not “one of them.” were marked as deviant and held up for all the world to Although we don’t use scarlet A’s today, informal degrada- see. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, town tion ceremonies still occur. Consider what happened to this officials forced Hester Prynne to wear a scarlet A sewn New York City police officer (Chivers 2001): on her dress. The A stood for adulteress. Wherever she Joseph Gray had been a police officer in New York City went, Prynne had to wear this badge of shame, and the for fifteen years. As with some of his fellow officers, community expected her to wear it every day for the rest of alcohol and sex helped relieve the pressures of police her life. work. After spending one afternoon drinking in a top- As our society grew large and urban, the sense of less bar, bleary-eyed, Gray plowed his car into a vehicle community diminished, and shaming lost its effectiveness. carrying a pregnant woman, her son, and her sister. All Now shaming is starting to make a comeback (Appiah three died. Gray was accused of manslaughter and drunk 2010). One Arizona sheriff makes the men in his jail wear driving. striped prison uniforms—and pink underwear (Billeaud The New York Times and New York television stations 2008). They also wear pink while they work in chain gangs. kept hammering this story to the public. Women prisoners, too, are put in chain Three weeks later, Gray resigned gangs and forced to pick up street from the police force. As he left trash. Online shaming sites have police headquarters after resign- also appeared. Captured on ing, an angry crowd surrounded cell phone cameras are bad him. Gray hung his head in drivers, older men who leer at public disgrace as Victor Manuel ­teenaged girls, and people Herrera, whose wife and son who don’t pick up their dog’s were killed in the crash, fol- poop (Saranow 2007). Some lowed him, shouting, “You’re sites post photos of the a murderer!” (Gray was later offenders as well as their ad- convicted of drunk driving and dresses and phone numbers. In manslaughter.) Spain, where one’s reputation with neighbors still matters, debt collectors, dressed in tuxedo and top hat, walk For Your Consideration slowly to the front door. The To avoid jail time, this woman in Pennsylvania chose ↑ sight shames debtors into paying the judge’s option of public shaming. 1. How do you think law enforce- (Catan 2008). ment officials might use shaming to Sociologist Harold Garfinkel (1956) gave the name deg- reduce law breaking? radation ceremony to an extreme form of shaming. The 2. How do you think school officials could use shaming? individual is called to account before the group, witnesses 3. Suppose that you were caught shoplifting at a store near denounce him or her, the offender is pronounced guilty, where you live. Would you rather spend a week in jail and steps are taken to strip the individual of his or her with no one but your family knowing it (and no perma- identity as a group member. In some courts martial, officers nent record) or a week walking in front of the store you who are found guilty stand at attention before their peers stole from wearing a placard that proclaims in bold red while others rip the insignia of rank from their uniforms. capital letters: I AM A THIEF! and in smaller letters says: This procedure screams that the individual is no longer a “I am sorry for stealing from this store and making you member of the group. Although Hester Prynne was not pay higher prices”? Why?

What conditions do you think would be necessary for shaming to be effective?

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these that others might try to pin on us. Some people are so successful at rejecting labels that even though they beat people up and vandalize property they consider them- selves to be conforming members of society. How do they do it? Sociologists Gresham Sykes and David Matza (1957/1988) studied boys like this. They found that the boys used fivetechniques of neutralization to deflect society’s norms. Denial of responsibility. Some boys said, “I’m not responsible for what happened because . . .” and then they were quite creative about the “becauses.” Some said that what happened was an “accident.” Other boys saw themselves as “victims” of society. What else could you expect? They were like billiard balls shot around the pool table of life. Denial of injury. Another favorite explanation was “What I did wasn’t wrong because no one got hurt.” The boys would define vandalism as “mischief,” gang fights as a “private quarrel,” and stealing cars as “borrowing.” They might acknowledge that what they did was illegal but claim that they were “just having a little fun.” Denial of a victim. Some boys thought of themselves as avengers. Vandalizing a teacher’s car was done to get revenge for an unfair grade, while shoplifting was a way to even the score with “crooked” store owners. In short, even if the boys did accept responsibility and admit that someone had gotten hurt, they protected their self-concept by claiming that the people “deserved what they got.” Condemnation of the condemners. Another technique the boys used was to deny that others had the right to judge them. They might accuse people who pointed their fingers at them of being “a bunch of hypocrites”: The police were “on the take,” teachers had “pets,” and parents cheated on their taxes. In short, they said, “Who are they to accuse me of something?” Appeal to higher loyalties. A final technique the boys used to justify their activities was to consider loyalty to the gang more important than the norms of society. They might say, “I had to help my friends. That’s why I got in the fight.” Not inciden- tally, the boy may have shot two members of a rival group, as well as a bystander! In Sum: These techniques of neutralization have implications far beyond this group of boys, for it is not only delinquents who try to neutralize the norms of mainstream soci- ety. Look again at these techniques—don’t they sound familiar? (1) “I couldn’t help myself ”; (2) “Who really got hurt?”; (3) “Don’t you think she deserved that, after what While most people resist labels of deviance, some embrace them. she did?”; (4) “Who are you to talk?”; and (5) “I had to help my friends—wouldn’t In what different ways does this you have done the same thing?” All of us attempt to neutralize the moral demands photo illustrate the embracement of society, for neutralization helps us to sleep at of deviance? night.

Embracing Labels: The Example of Outlaw Bikers. Although most of us resist attempts to label us as deviant, some people revel in a deviant identity. Some teenagers, for example, make certain by their clothing, music, hairstyles, and body art that no one misses their rejection of adult norms. Their status among fellow members of a subcul- ture—within which they are almost obsessive con- formists—is vastly more important than any status outside it. One of the best examples of a group that embraces deviance is a motorcycle gang. Sociologist Mark Watson (1980/2006) did participant observation with outlaw bikers. He rebuilt Harleys with them, hung around their bars and homes, and went on “runs” (trips) with them. He concluded that outlaw bikers see the

How do juvenile delinquents neutralize their deviance? How do you? LO

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world as “hostile, weak, and effeminate.” Holding this conventional world in con- tempt, gang members pride themselves on breaking its norms and getting in trouble, laughing at death, and treating women as lesser beings whose primary value is to pro- vide them with services—especially sex. They pride themselves in looking “dirty, mean, and generally undesirable,” taking pleasure in shocking people by their appearance and behavior. Outlaw bikers also regard themselves as losers, a view that becomes woven into their unusual embrace of deviance.

Read The Power of Labels: The Saints and the Roughnecks. Labels are powerful. When The Saints and the Roughnecks courts label teenagers as delinquents, it often triggers a process that leads to greater by William Chambliss involvement in deviance (DeLisi et al. 2011). We can see how powerful labeling is by refer- on mysoclab.com ring back to the “Saints” and the “Roughnecks,” research that was cited in Chapter 4. As you recall, both groups of high school boys were “constantly occupied with truancy, drinking, wild parties, petty theft, and vandalism.” Yet their teachers looked on one group, the Saints, as “headed for success” and the other group, the Roughnecks, as “headed for trouble.” By the time they finished high school, not one Saint had been arrested, while the Roughnecks had been in constant trouble with the police. Why did the members of the community perceive these boys so differently? Chambliss (1973/2012) concluded that this split vision was due to social class. As symbolic interactionists emphasize, social class is like a lens that focuses our percep- tions. The Saints came from respectable, middle-class families, while the Roughnecks were from less respectable, working-class families. These backgrounds led teachers and the authorities to expect good behavior from the Saints but trouble from the Roughnecks. And, like the rest of us, teachers and police saw what they expected to see. The boys’ social class also affected their visibility. The Saints had automobiles, and they did their drinking and vandalism outside of town. Without cars, the Roughnecks hung around their own street corners, where their drinking and boisterous behavior drew the attention of police, confirming the negative impressions that the community already had of them. The boys’ social class also equipped them with distinct styles of interaction. When police or teachers questioned them, the Saints were apologetic. Their show of respect for authority elicited a positive reaction from teachers and police, allowing the Saints to escape school and legal problems. The Roughnecks, said Chambliss, were “almost the polar opposite.” When questioned, they were hostile. Even when they tried to assume a respectful attitude, everyone could see through it. Consequently, while teachers and police let the Saints off with warnings, they came down hard on the Roughnecks. Certainly, what happens in life is not determined by labels alone, but the Saints and the Roughnecks did live up to the labels that the community gave them. As you may recall, all but one of the Saints went on to college. One earned a Ph.D., one became a lawyer, one a doctor, and the others business managers. In contrast, only two of the Roughnecks went to college. They earned athletic scholarships and became coaches. The other Roughnecks did not fare so well. Two of them dropped out of high school, later became involved in separate killings, and were sent to prison. Of the final two, one became a local bookie, and no one knows the whereabouts of the other. How do labels work? Although the matter is complex, because it involves the self- concept and reactions that vary from one individual to another, we can note that labels open and close doors of opportunity. Unlike its meaning in sociology, the term devi- ant in everyday usage is emotionally charged with a judgment of some sort. This label can lock people out of conforming groups and push them into almost exclusive contact with people who have been similarly labeled. In Sum: Symbolic interactionists examine how people’s definitions of the situation underlie their deviating from or conforming to social norms. They focus on group membership (differential association), how people balance pressures to conform and to deviate (control theory), and the significance of people’s reputations (labeling theory).

Can you explain why labels are powerful? How does reputation influence your behavior? LO

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The Functionalist Perspective When we think of deviance, its dysfunctions are likely to come to mind. Functionalists point out that deviance also has functions. Can Deviance Really Be Functional for Society? Most of us are upset by deviance, especially crime, and assume that society would be better off without it. The classic functionalist theorist Emile Durkheim (1893/1933, 1895/1964), however, came to a surprising conclusion. Deviance, he said—including crime—is functional for society, for it contributes to the social order in these three ways: 1. Deviance clarifies moral boundaries and affirms norms. By moral boundaries, Dur- kheim referred to a group’s ideas about how people should think and act. Deviant acts challenge those boundaries. To call a member into account is to say, in effect, “You broke an important rule, and we cannot tolerate that.” Punishing deviants af- firms the group’s norms and clarifies what it means to be a member of the group. 2. Deviance encourages social unity. To affirm the group’s moral boundaries by punish- ing deviants fosters a “we” feeling among the group’s members. In saying, “You can’t get away with that,” the group affirms the rightness of its own ways. 3. Deviance promotes social change. Not everyone agrees on what to do with people who push beyond their accepted ways of doing things. Some group members may even approve of the rule-breaking behavior. Boundary violations that gain enough support become new, acceptable behaviors. Deviance, then, may force a group to rethink and redefine its moral boundaries, helping groups—and whole societies—to adapt to changing circumstances. In the Down-to-Earth Sociology box on the next page, you can see these three func- tions of deviance as well as the central point of symbolic interactionism, that deviance involves a clash of competing definitions. Strain Theory: How Social Values Produce Deviance Functionalists argue that crime is a natural part of society, not an aberration or some alien element in our midst. Even mainstream values can even generate crime. Consider what sociologists Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin (1960) identified as the crucial prob- lem of the industrialized world: the need to locate and train its talented people—whether they were born into wealth or into poverty—so that they can take over the key technical jobs of society. When children are born, no one knows which ones will have the ability to become dentists, nuclear physicists, or engineers. To get the most talented people to compete with one another, society tries to motivate everyone to strive for success. We are quite successful in getting almost everyone to want cultural goals, usually pos- sessions, wealth, or prestige. But we aren’t even close to successful in equalizing access to the institutionalized means, the legitimate ways to reach these goals. Sociologist Robert Merton (1956, 1949/1968) developed strain theory to explain how people react when their access to success is blocked. Strain refers to the frustrations people feel. It is easy to identify with mainstream norms (such as working hard or pursuing higher education) when they help you get ahead, but when they don’t seem to be getting you anywhere, you feel frustrated. You might even feel wronged by the system. If mainstream rules seem illegitimate, you experience a gap that Merton called anomie, a sense of normlessness. Table 6.1 on the next page compares the ways that people react to these goals and means. The first reaction, which Merton said is the most common, isconformity, using socially acceptable means to try to reach cultural goals. In industrialized societ- ies most people try to get good jobs, a quality education, and so on. If well-paid jobs are unavailable, they take less desirable jobs. If they are denied access to Harvard or Stanford, they go to a state university. Others take night classes and go to vocational schools. In short, most people take the socially acceptable path.

How is deviance functional for society? How do mainstream values produce deviance?

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Down-to-Earth Sociology

The Naked Pumpkin Runners and the Naked Bike Riders: Deviance or Freedom of Self-Expression?

hey can hardly sleep the night before Halloween, “Are women’s breasts genitalia?” they’ve been asked. thinking about how they will carve their pumpkins and “No, those are okay,” replied the police. “But watch the rest Tall the fun to come. When night falls, they put sneakers of it—uh, that is, don’t watch . . . uh, that is, don’t show any- on their feet and, the pumpkins on their heads and run into thing else. You know what we mean. If you do, we will arrest the street. There is nothing between the pumpkins and the you, and you’ll end up on the sexual offenders list.” sneakers—except whatever nature endowed them with “Bad sports,” reply the naked pumpkin runners and the na- (Simon 2009). ked bike riders, pouting just a bit. “You’re trying to ruin our fun.” They join one another for their annual chilly, late-night “We didn’t make the laws,” the police reply, not pleased run. Do the gawkers bother them? Maybe a little, but it’s all about the many who have become angry at their lack of un- in good fun. The crowd is waiting, hooting and hollering and derstanding. “We just enforce them.” waving them on. Trying to recover their tolerance, the police add, “Just wear a “Not so fast,” reply the police in Boulder, Colorado, where thong or a jock strap, and run and ride to your hearts’ content.” the naked pumpkin run is held on the last day of each Octo- The American Civil Liberties Union has stepped into the ber. “You are breaking the law.” fray, too, saying that nakedness If the naked pumpkin run isn’t is a form of free speech. Partici- enough, the Boulder police also pants should be able to express have to deal with the annual their, well, whatever it is they are World Naked Bike Ride, which expressing. has become so popular that it is held in 70 cities around the world For↑ Your Consideration (Vigil 2009). The naked bike Here is a basic principle of rides seem to be a celebration deviance: As people break rules, of youth and freedom—and as sometimes deliberately to test older people join in, just freedom the boundaries ofacceptable and maybe the joy of being alive. behavior, the group enforces its Though the Boulder police have norms, or bends them to accom- prided themselves on tolerance, The annual Naked Pumpkin Run, Boulder, Colorado modate the deviants. How do the they don’t see the run and ride in naked pumpkin runners and the quite the same way as the participants do. “The law,” they say, naked bike riders illustrate this principle? What do you think “clearly states that no one can show genitalia in public.” the result will be in Boulder, Colorado?

Four Deviant Paths. The remaining four responses, which are deviant, represent reactions to the gap that people feel between the goals they want and their access to the institutionalized means to reach them. Let’s look at each. Innovators are people who accept the goals of society but use illegitimate means to try to reach them.

Table 6.1 How People Match Their Goals to Their Means

Do They Feel the Strain Mode of Cultural Institutionalized That Leads to Anomie? Adaptation Goals Means

No Conformity Accept Accept Deviant Paths: Yes 1. Innovation Accept Reject 2. Ritualism Reject Accept 3. Retreatism Reject Reject 4. Rebellion Reject/Replace Reject/Replace

Source: Based on Merton 1968.

What do you think the social functions of group public nudity are?

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Crack dealers, for instance, accept the goal of achieving wealth, but they reject the legitimate avenues for doing so. Other examples are embezzlers, robbers, and con artists. The second deviant path is taken by people who become discouraged and give up on achieving cultural goals. Yet they still cling to conventional rules of conduct. Merton called this response ritualism. Although ritualists have given up on getting ahead at work, they survive by rigorously following the rules of their job. Teachers whose idealism is shattered (who are said to suffer from “burnout”), for example, remain in the classroom, where they teach without enthusiasm. Their response is considered deviant because they cling to the job even though they have abandoned the goal, which may have been to stimulate young minds or to make the world a better place. People who choose the third deviant path, retreatism, reject both the cultural goals and the institutionalized means of achieving them. Some people stop pursuing success and retreat into alcohol or drugs. Although their path to withdrawal is con- siderably different, women who enter a convent or men a monastery are also retrea- tists. The final deviant response isrebellion. Convinced that their society is corrupt, rebels, like retreatists, reject both society’s goals and its institutionalized means. Unlike retreatists, however, rebels seek to give society new goals, as well as new means for reaching them. Revolutionaries are the most committed type of rebels. In Sum: Strain theory underscores the sociological principle that deviants are the product of society. Mainstream social values (cultural goals and institutionalized means to reach those goals) can produce strain (frustration, dissatisfaction). People who feel this strain are more likely than others to take the deviant (nonconforming) paths sum- marized in Table 6.1.

Illegitimate Opportunity Structures: Social Class and Crime Over and over in this text, you have seen the impact of social class on people’s lives— and you will continue to do so in coming chapters. Let’s look at how social class pro- duces different types of crime. Street Crime. In applying strain theory, functionalists point out that industrialized societies have no trouble socializing the poor into wanting to own things. Like ­others, the poor are bombarded with messages urging them to buy everything from Xboxes and iPods to designer jeans and new cars. Television and movies are filled with images of middle-class people enjoying luxurious lives. The poor get the message—all ­full-fledged Americans can afford society’s many goods and services. Yet, for children in poverty, the most common route to success— education—presents a bewildering world. Run by the middle class, schools are at odds with their background. What the poor take for granted is unacceptable in the schools. It is questioned and mocked. Their speech, for example, is built around nonstandard grammar. It is also often laced with what the middle class considers obscenities. Their ideas of punctuality and their poor preparation in reading and paper-and-pencil skills also make it difficult to fit in. Facing such barriers, the poor are more likely than their more privileged counterparts to drop out of school. Educational failure, of course, slams the door on many legitimate avenues to financial success. Not all doors slam shut, though. Woven into life in urban slums is what Cloward and Ohlin (1960) called an illegitimate opportunity structure. An alternative door to success opens: “hustles” such as robbery, burglary, drug dealing, prostitution, pimping, gambling, and other crimes (Anderson 1978, 1990/2006; Duck and Rawls 2011). Pimps and drug dealers, for example, present an image of a glamorous life— people who are in control and have plenty of “easy money.” For many of the poor, the “hustler” becomes a role model.

Can you explain the four deviant paths outlined in strain theory?

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Down-to-Earth Sociology

Islands in the Street: Urban Gangs in the United States

or more than ten years, sociologist Martín Sánchez- to help the community. This last reason may seem surpris- Jankowski (1991) did participant observation ing, but in some neighborhoods, gangs protect residents Fof thirty-seven African American, Chicano, from outsiders and spearhead political change (Kontos Dominican, Irish, Jamaican, and Puerto Rican gangs et al. 2003). The boys also saw the gang as an alternative to in Boston, Los Angeles, and New York City. The gangs the dead-end—and deadening—jobs held by their parents. earned money through gambling, arson, mugging, Neighborhood residents are ambivalent about gangs. armed robbery, and On the one hand, they fear the selling moonshine, drugs, violence. On the other hand, guns, stolen car parts, many of the adults once be- and protection. Sánchez- longed to gangs, some gangs Jankowski ate, slept, and provide better protection than fought with the gangs, but by the police, and gang members mutual agreement he did not are the children of people who participate in drug dealing or live in the neighborhood. other illegal activities. He was Particular gangs will come and seriously injured twice during go, but gangs will likely always the study. remain part of the city. As function- Contrary to stereotypes, alists point out, gangs fulfill needs Sánchez-Jankowski did not of poor youth who live on the find that the motive for join- margins of society. ing was to escape a broken home (there were as many

members from intact families as from broken homes) or For↑ Your Consideration to seek a substitute family (the same number of boys said What functions do gangs fulfill (what needs do they they were close to their families as those who said they meet)? Suppose that you have been hired as an urban plan- were not). Rather, the boys joined to gain access to money, ner for the city of Los Angeles. How could you arrange to to have recreation (including girls and drugs), to maintain meet the needs that gangs fulfill in ways that minimize vio- anonymity in committing crimes, to get protection, and lence and encourage youth to follow mainstream norms?

It should be easy to see, then, why street crime attracts disproportionate numbers of the poor. In the Down-to-Earth Sociology box above, let’s look at how gangs are part of the illegitimate opportunity structure that beckons disadvantaged youth. White-Collar Crime. Like the poor, the forms of crime of the more privileged classes also match their life situation. And how different their illegitimate opportunities are! Physicians don’t hold up cabbies, but they do cheat Medicare. Investment managers like Bernie Madoff run fraudulent schemes that cheat customers around the world. Mugging, pimping, and burgling are not part of this more privileged world, but evading income tax, bribing public officials, and embezzling are. Sociologist Edwin Sutherland (1949) coined the term white-collar crime to refer to crimes that people of respectable and high social status commit in the course of their occupations. A special form of white-collar crime is corporate crime, executives violating the law in order to benefit their corporation. For example, to increase corporate profits, Sears execu- tives defrauded $100 million from victims so poor that they had filed for bankruptcy. To avoid a criminal trial, Sears pleaded guilty. This frightened the parent companies of Macy’s and Bloomingdales, which were doing similar things, and they settled out of court (McCormick 1999). Citigroup is notorious for stealing from the poor. In 2004, this firm had to pay $70 million for its crimes (O’Brien 2004). But, like a career criminal, it ­continued its law-breaking ways. The firm “swept” money from its customers’ credit cards, even from the cards of people who had died. Caught red-handed once again—even

What functions do gangs serve? For their members? For society?

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­stealing from the dead—in 2008 this company was forced to pay another $18 million (Read 2008). Not one of the corporate thieves at Sears, Macy’s, Bloomingdales, or Citigroup spent a day in jail. Seldom is corporate crime taken seriously, even when it results in death. In the 1930s, workers were hired to blast a tunnel through a mountain in West Virginia. The company knew the silica dust would kill the miners, and in just three months about 600 died (Dunaway 2008). No owner went to jail. In the 1980s, Firestone executives recalled faulty tires in Saudi Arabia and Venezuela but allowed them to remain on U.S. vehicles. When their tires blew out, about 200 Americans died (White et al. 2001). The photo at the right shows another human cost. Not a single Firestone executive went to jail. Consider this: Under federal law, causing the death of a worker by willfully violating safety rules is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in prison. Yet to harass a wild burro on federal lands is punishable by a year in prison (Barstow and Bergman 2003). At $500 billion dollars a year (Reiman and Leighton 2010), “crime in the suites” actually costs more than “crime in the streets.” The physi- cal and emotional costs are another matter. For example, no one has figured out a way to compare the suffering of rape victims with the pain of elderly couples who lost their life savings to Madoff's white-collar fraud. White collar crime usually involves only the loss of property, but not always. Fear, however, centers on street crime, especially the violent stranger who can change To save money, Ford executives kept your life forever. As the Social Map (Figure 6.1) shows, the chances of such an encoun- faulty Firestone tires on their Explorers. ter depend on where you live. You can see that entire regions are safer—or more The cost? The lives of over 200 people. dangerous–than others. In general, the northern states are safer, and the southern Shown here in Houston is one of their states more dangerous. victims. She survived a needless accident but was left a quadriplegic. Not one Ford executive spent even a single day in jail.

Figure 6.1 How Safe Is Your State? Violent Crime in the United States

Violent crimes per 100,000 people. WA 332 Safer than average VT ME (119–302) MT ND 141 119 302 Average safety OR 201 MN NH 166 (307–496) 265 ID 289 NY MA 466 239 SD WI 402 RI 253 More dangerous WY 301 277 MI 522 CT 307 than average 246 PA IA NJJ 323266 NV NE 298 417 (504–728) OH 728 UT 323 IL IN DE 385 70909 Safest CA 226 CO 533 376 WV VA 504 KS 300 MDD 344 MO KY 258 6288 415 505 307 NC DC 1. Maine (119) 487 1,438 AZ OK TN 722 NM SC 726 2. Vermont (141) 479 540 AR 671 516 GA MS AL 3. New Hampshire (166) 496 329 466 TX LA 508 658 Most Dangerous AK FL 654 689 1. Nevada (728) 2. South Carolina (726) HI 273 3. Tennessee (722)

Note: Violent crimes are murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. The chance of becoming a victim of these crimes is six times higher in Nevada, the most dangerous state, than in Maine, the safest state. Washington, D.C., not a state, is in a class by itself. Its rate of 1,438 is twelve times higher than Maine’s rate. Source: By the author. Based on Statistical Abstract of the United States 2011: Table 304.

How do street crime and white-collar crime reflect opportunity structures?

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Table 6.2 Gender and Crime. Gender is not just Women and Crime: What a Difference something we are or do. It is a feature of a Few Years Make society that surrounds us from birth. Gender Of all those arrested, what percentage are women? pushes us, as male or female, into different Crime 1992 2009 Change corners in life, offering and nurturing some behaviors while it withdraws others. The Stolen property 12.5% 20.9% +67% opportunity to commit crime is one of the Car theft 10.8% 17.8% +65% many consequences of how society sets up Drunken driving 13.8% 22.7% +64% a gender order. The social changes that Burglary 9.2% 14.9% +62% opened business and the professions to Aggravated assault 14.8% 22.0% +49% women also brought new opportunities for Robbery 8.5% 11.9% +40% women to commit crime. From stolen prop- Larceny/theft 32.1% 43.6% +36% erty to illegal weapons, Table 6.2 shows how Arson 13.4% 17.3% +29% women have taken advantage of this new Illegal drugs 16.4% 18.7% +14% opportunity. Forgery and counterfeiting 34.7% 37.7% +9% Fraud 42.1% 44.3% +5% In Sum: Functionalists stress that just as Illegal weapons 7.5% 8.1% 1% the social classes differ in opportunities for income and education, so they differ in Source: By the author. Based on Statistical Abstract of the United States 2012: Table 324. opportunities for crime. As a result, street crime is higher among the lower social classes and white-collar crime higher among the higher social classes. The growing crime rates of women illustrate how changing gender roles have given women more access to what sociologists call “illegitimate opportunities.” The ConflictP erspective Class, Crime, and the Criminal Justice System

TRW sold transistors to the federal government to use in its satellites. The transistors failed, and the government had to shut down its satellite program. TRW said that the failure was a surprise, that it was due to some unknown defect. U.S. officials then paid TRW millions of dollars to investigate the failure. Then a whistle blower appeared, informing the government that TRW knew the tran- sistors would fail in satellites even before it sold them. The government sued Northrop Grumman Corporation, which had bought TRW, and the corporation was found guilty (Drew 2009). What was the punishment for a crime this serious? The failure of these satellites com- promised the defense of the United States. When the executives of TRW were put on trial, how long were their prison sentences? Actually, these criminals weren’t even put on trial, and not one spent even a night in jail. Grumman was fined $325 million. Then—and this is hard to believe—on the same day, the government settled a lawsuit that Grumman had brought against it for $325 million. Certainly a rare coincidence. Contrast this backdoor deal between influential people with what happens to the poor who break the law. A poor person who is caught stealing even a $1,000 car can end up serving years in prison. How can a legal system that proudly boasts “justice for all” be so inconsistent? According to conflict theory, this question is central to the analysis of crime and the criminal justice system—the police, courts, and prisons that deal with people who are accused of having committed crimes. Let’s see what conflict theorists have to say about this. The Criminal Justice System as an Instrument of Oppression Conflict theorists regard power and social inequality as the main characteristics of society. The criminal justice system, they stress, is a tool designed by the powerful to maintain their power and privilege. For the poor, in contrast, the law is an instrument­

How is gender related to crime?

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of oppression (Spitzer 1975; Reiman 2004; Chambliss 2000, 1973/2012). The idea that the law operates impartially to bring justice, they say, is a cultural myth promoted­ by the capitalist class to secure the cooperation of the poor in their own oppression. The working class and those below them pose a special threat to the power elite. Receiving the least of society’s material rewards, they hold the potential to rebel and overthrow the current social order (see Figure 8.5). To prevent this, the law comes down hard on its members who get out of line. The working poor and the underclass are a special problem. They are the least rooted in society. They have few skills and only low-paying, part-time, or seasonal work—if they have jobs at all. Because their street crimes threaten the social order that keeps the elite in power, they are punished severely. In early capitalism, children From this class come most of the prison inmates in the United States. worked alongside adults. At that The criminal justice system, then, does not focus on the executives of corporations time, just as today, most street and the harm they do through manufacturing unsafe products, creating pollution, and criminals came from the marginal manipulating prices. Yet the violations of the capitalist class cannot be ignored totally, working class, as did the boys shown in this 1911 yarn mill in Yazoo City, Mississippi.

Why do conflict theorists view the criminal justice system as an instrument of oppression?

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Explore for if they become too extreme they might outrage the working class, encouraging Living Data them to rise up and revolt. To prevent this, a flagrant violation by a member of the on mysoclab.com capitalist class is occasionally prosecuted. The publicity given to the case provides evi- dence of the “fairness” of the criminal­ justice system, which helps to stabilize the social system—and keeps the powerful in their positions of privilege. The powerful are usually able to bypass the courts altogether, appearing instead before an agency that has no power to imprison (such as the Federal Trade Commission). These agencies are directed by people from wealthy backgrounds who sympathize with the intri- cacies of the corporate world. It is they who oversee most cases of price manipulation, insider stock trading, violations of fiduciary duty, and so on. Is it surprising, then, that the typical sanction for corporate­ crime is a token fine?

In Sum: Conflict theorists stress that the power elite developed the legal system, which is used to stabilize the social order. It helps control the poor, who pose a threat to the powerful, for if they rebel as a group they can dislodge members of the criminal justice system from their place of privilege. To prevent this, the crimi- nal justice system makes certain that heavy penalties come down on the poor. Reactions to Deviance Whether it involves cheating on a sociology quiz or holding up a liquor store, any viola- tion of norms invites reaction. Before we examine reactions in the United States, let’s take a little side trip to England. I think you’ll enjoy this little excursion in the Cultural Diversity box on page 6-23. Street Crime and Prisons Let’s turn back to the United States. Figure 6.2 on page 6-22 shows the surge in the U.S. prison population. And what a surge! Prisoners have been coming in so fast that the states haven’t been able to build prisons fast enough to hold them all. To accom- modate their many new guests, the state and federal governments have hired private companies to operate “for-profit” prisons. About 130,000 prisoners are held in these private prisons (Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 2010: Table 6.32.2009). Actually, the United States has even more prisoners than shown in Figure 6.2, since this total does not include jail inmates. If we add them, the total comes to about 2.3 million people—about one out of every 135 citizens. Not only does the United States The cartoonist’s hyperbole makes an excellent commentary on the social have more prisoners than any other nation in the world, but it also has a larger percent- class disparity of our criminal justice age of its population in prison as well (Warren et al. 2008). system. Not only are the crimes of Who are these prisoners? Let’s compare them with the U.S. population. As you look the wealthy not as likely to come to at Table 6.3, several things may strike you. About half (49 percent) of all prisoners are the attention of authorities as are the younger than 35, and almost all prisoners are men. Then there is this remarkable statis- crimes of the poor, but when they do, the wealthy can afford legal expertise tic: Although African Americans make up just 12.8 percent of the U.S. population, close that the poor cannot. to two of five prisoners are African Americans. On any given day,one out of every nine African American men ages 20 to 34 is in jail or prison. (For Latinos, the rate is one of twenty-six; for whites one of one hundred [Warren et al. 2008].) Finally, note how marriage and education—two of the major ways that society “anchors” people into mainstream behavior—keeps people out of prison. Most prisoners have never married. And look at the power of education, a major component of social class. As I mentioned earlier, social class funnels some people into the criminal justice system and diverts others away from it. You can see how people who drop out of high school have a high chance of ending up in prison—and how unlikely it is for a college graduate to have this unwelcome destination in life. For about the past twenty years or so, the United States has followed a “get tough” policy. One of the most significant changes was “three-strikes- and-you’re-out” laws, which have had unanticipated consequences, as you

© Leo Cullum/The New Yorker Collection/ © Leo Cullum/The New Yorker www.cartoonbank.com will see in the following Thinking Critically section.

How do the state and federal governments handle the surge in prison population?

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Table 6.3 Inmates in U.S. State and Federal Prisons

Percentage of U.S. Percentage of Prisoners Population with These Characteristics with These Characteristics Characteristics

Age 18–24 15.9% 9.8% 25–34 33.6% 13.5% 35–44 29.1% 14.0% 45–54 14.8% 14.6% 55 and older 6.7% 23.9% Race–Ethnicity African American 38.4% 12.8% White 34.3% 65.6% Latino 20.3% 15.4% Othera 6.9% 5.5% Sex Male 93.2% 49.2% Female 6.8% 50.8% Marital Status Never married 59.8% 26.0% Divorced 15.5% 10.4% Married 17.3% 57.3% Widowed 1.1% 6.4% Education Less than high school 39.7% 13.4% High school graduate 49.0% 31.2% Some college b 9.0% 26.0% College graduate 2.4% 29.4%

aAsian Americans and Native Americans are included in this category. bIncludes associate’s degrees. Source: By the author. Based on Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 2003: Tables 6.000b, 6.28; 2006: Tables 6.34, 6.45; 2009: Table 6.33.2008; Statistical Abstract of the United States 2011: Tables 8, 10, 56, 227.

Thinking Critically “Three Strikes and You’re Out!” Unintended Consequences of Well-Intended Laws

s the violent crime rate soared in the 1980s, Americans grew fearful. They demanded that their lawmakers do something. Politicians heard the mes- A sage, and many responded by passing “three-strikes” laws in their states. Anyone who is convicted of a third felony receives an automatic mandatory sen- tence. Although some mandatory sentences carry life imprisonment, judges are not allowed to consider the circumstances. While few of us would feel sympathy if a man convicted of a third brutal rape or a third murder were sent to prison for life, in their haste to appease the public the politicians did not limit the three-strike laws to violent crimes. And they did not consider that some minor crimes are considered felonies. As the functionalists would say, this has led to unanticipated consequences. Here are some actual cases: • In Los Angeles, a 27-year-old man who stole a pizza was sentenced to 25 years in prison (Cloud 1998). • In Sacramento, a man passed himself off as Tiger Woods and went on a $17,000 shopping spree. He was sentenced to 200 years in prison (Reuters 2001).

Why don’t the characteristics of prisoners match those of the U.S. population?

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Figure 6.2 How Much Is Enough? The Explosion in the Number of U.S. Prisoners

2,000 1,900 1,800 1,800,000 1,700 1,600 1,610,000 1,500

1,400 1,391,000 1,300 1,200 1,100 1,000 900 (in thousands) 774,000 800 700 600 Number of federal and state prisoners 500 400 316,000 300 196,000 200 100 0 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 Year Between 1970 and 2008, the U.S. population increased 50 percent, while the number of prisoners increased 821 percent, a rate that is sixteen times greater than population growth. If the number of prisoners had grown at the same rate as the U.S. population, we would have about 294,000 prisoners, only one-fifth to one-sixth of today’s total. Or if the U.S. population had increased at the same rate as that of U.S. prisoners, the U.S. population would be 1,670,000,000—approximately the population of China and all of Europe combined. Sources: By the author. Based on Statistical Abstract of the United States 1995: Table 349; 2011: Tables 1, 6, 344. The broken line is the author’s estimate.

• Also in California, Michael James passed a bad check for $94. He was sentenced to 25 years to life (Jones 2008). • In Utah, a 25-year-old sold small bags of marijuana to a police informant. The judge who sentenced the man to 55 years in prison said the sentence was unjust, but he had no choice (Madigan 2004). • In New York City, a man who was about to be sentenced for selling crack said to the judge, “I’m only 19. This is terrible.” He then hurled himself out of a courtroom window, plunging to his death sixteen stories below (Cloud 1998).

For↑ Your Consideration Apply the symbolic interactionist, functionalist, and conflict perspectives to the three- strikes laws. For symbolic interactionism, what do these laws represent to the public? How does your answer differ depending on what part of “the public” you are referring to? For functionalism, who benefits from these laws? What are some of the functions of three-strikes laws? Their dysfunctions? For the conflict perspective, which groups are in conflict? Who has the power to enforce their will on others? n

How are the three-strikes laws part of the reason for the explosion in the number of U.S. prisoners?

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The Decline in Violent Crime As you have seen, judges have put more and more people in prison, and legislators have passed the three-strikes laws. As these changes occurred, the crime rate dropped sharply, which has led to a controversy in sociology. Some sociologists conclude that getting tough on criminals is the main reason that violent crime dropped (Conklin 2003; Bhati and Piquero 2008). Others point to higher employment, a drop in drug use, and even abortion (Rosenfeld 2002; Joyce 2009). We can rule out unemployment, for when the unemploy- ment rate shot up with the economic crisis the lower crime rates continued (Oppel 2011). This matter is not yet settled. We’ll see what answers future research brings.

Recidivism If a goal of prisons is to teach their clients to stay away from crime, they are colossal failures. We can measure their failure by the recidivism rate—the percentage of former prisoners who are rearrested. For people sent to prison for crimes of violence, within just three years of their release, two out of three (62 percent) are rearrested, and half (52 percent) are back in prison (Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 2003: Table 6.52). Looking at Figure 6.3, which gives

Cultural Diversity around the World “Dogging” in England

In some places in England, people like “dogging.” This is their term for having sex in public so others can watch. The sex often is between strangers who have arranged to meet through the Internet. “Dogging” is a strange term, and no one knows its origin. The term might come from voyeurs who doggedly follow people who are having sex. Or it might refer to the similarity to female dogs in heat that have sex with any dog around. Or it might even come from the statement “I’m just should we do with it?” asked the officer. Seeing that she going to walk the dog,” when they are really going out to was going to get nowhere, she said they could just put it in do something else entirely. Lost and Found. Regardless of the term’s origin, frolicking in the fields is After listening to citizen complaints, the County Council popular. Internet sites even lay out basic rules, such as “Only Cabinet wanted to know if anyone had practical solutions. join in if you are asked.” One suggested that the police patrol the site with dogs. The Internet sites also rate England’s dogging locations. Another said they should fill the field with bad-tempered bulls. The field in Puttenham, a village an hour’s drive from Lon- Distressed at such inconsiderate reactions, one empathetic don, is ranked Number 2 in England. The field is mostly used cabinet member said, “If you close this site, they wouldn’t have by homosexuals during the day, with heterosexuals taking anywhere else to go. There might be an increase in suicides.” over at night. The citizens and Council members reached a compro- One motorist who stopped his car to use the bushes for a mise: They would put up a sign. “Don’t have sex here” bathroom break was startled when a group of eager men sur- seemed too direct for the English, so the sign, much more rounded him. He said that he took the quickest pee in his life. polite and circuitous, says, “Do not engage in activities of an Dogging isn’t legal, but the police mostly ignore it. unacceptable nature.” The police have even warned the public, but in a discreet Source: Based on Lyall 2010. English way. They have designated the field in Puttenham

as a “public sex environment.” For↑ Your Consideration Some village residents are upset at the litter left behind, What do you think the police would do if there were from condoms to tea cups. Others are upset that the dog- a “dogging” field in your town? What do you think the ging field is just 400 yards from the village nursery school. public’s reaction would be? Why do you think the police A woman who went to the police to complain showed are so “heavy handed” in the United States while those in them a pink vibrator she had found in the field. “What England take such a lighter approach?

Compare the reactions to “dogging” in England with the “three-strikes” laws in the United States. LO

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a breakdown of three-year recidivism by type of crime, it is safe to conclude that prisons do not teach people that crime doesn’t pay.

The Death Penalty and Bias As you know, capital punishment, the death penalty, is the most extreme measure the state takes. As you also know, the death pen- alty arouses both impassioned opposition and support. Advances in DNA testing have given opponents of the death penalty a strong argument: Innocent people have been sent to death row, and some have been executed. Others are just as passionate about retaining the death penalty. They point to such crimes as those of the serial killers discussed in the Down-to-Earth Sociology box on the next page. Geography. Apart from anyone’s personal position on the death penalty, it certainly is clear that the death penalty is not © Mike Twohy/The New Yorker Collection/ New Yorker © Mike Twohy/The www.cartoonbank.com administered evenly. Consider geography: The Social Map (Figure 6.4) on page 6-26 shows that where people commit murder greatly affects their chances of being put to death. Unfortunately, whatever prisoners do learn about themselves in prison—if Social Class. The death penalty also shows social class bias. As you know from news anything—fails to keep them from reports, it is rare for a rich person to be sentenced to death. Although the government coming back. does not collect statistics on social class and the death penalty, this common observa- tion is borne out by the education of the prisoners on death row. Half of the prisoners on death row (50 percent) have not finished high school Sourcebook( of Criminal Justice Statistics 2009: Table 6.81). Gender. There is also a gender bias in the death penalty—so strong that it is almost unheard of for a woman to be sentenced to death, much less Figure 6.3 Recidivism of U.S. Prisoners executed. Although women commit 9.6 percent of the murders, they make up only 1.8 percent of Of 272,000 prisoners released from U.S. prisons, what percentage were rearrested within three years? death row inmates (Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 2009: Table 6.81). Even on death row, The rearrest rates the gender bias continues: Of those condemned of those who had 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% been convicted of: to death, the state is more likely to execute a man than a woman. As Figure 6.5 on page 6-27 Stealing cars 79% shows, only 0.9 percent of the 1,137 prisoners Possessing or selling 77% stolen property executed in the United States since 1977 have been women. This gender bias could reflect the Theft 75% women’s previous­ offenses and the relative bru- Burglary 74% tality of their murders, but we need research to determine if this is so. Robbery 70%

Illegal weapons 70% Race–Ethnicity. At one point, racial-ethnic bias was so flagrant that it put a stop to the death penal- Illegal drugs 67% ty. Donald Partington (1965), a lawyer in Virginia, Fraud 66% was shocked by the bias he saw in the courtroom, and he decided to document it. Going back to Arson 58% 1908, he found that 2,798 men had been convicted Drunk driving 52% for rape and attempted rape in Virginia—56 percent whites and 44 percent blacks. For rape, 41 men had Rape 46% been executed. For attempted rape, 13 had been Murder 41% executed. All those executed were black. Not one of the whites was executed.

Source: By the author. Based on Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 2003: Table 6.50. After listening to evidence like this, in 1972 the Note: The individuals were not necessarily rearrested for the same crime for which they Supreme Court ruled in Furman v. Georgia that had originally been imprisoned. the death penalty, as applied, was unconstitutional.

Based on recidivism, how effective are our prisons? Why do you think we have a gender bias in the death penalty?

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Down-to-Earth Sociology

The Killer Next Door: Serial Murderers in Our Midst

ere is my experience with serial killers. As I was Serial murder is killing three or more victims in separate watching television one night, I was stunned by the events. The murders may occur over several days, weeks, or Himages. Television cameras showed the Houston police years. The elapsed time between murders distinguishes serial digging up dozens of bodies from under a boat storage shed. killers from mass murderers, those who do their killing all at Fascinated, I waited impatiently for spring break. A few days once. Here are some infamous examples: later, I drove from Illinois, where I was teaching, to Houston, • During the 1960s and 1970s, Ted Bundy raped and killed where 33-year-old Dean Corll had befriended Elmer Wayne dozens of women in four states. Henley and David Brooks, two teenagers from broken homes. • Between 1974 and 1991, Dennis Rader killed ten people Together, they had killed twenty-seven boys. Elmer and David in Wichita, Kansas. Rader had written to the newspapers, would pick up young hitchhikers and deliver them to Corll to proudly calling himself the BTK (Bind, Torture, and Kill) rape and kill. Sometimes they even brought him their own high strangler. school classmates. • In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I talked to one of Elmer’s neighbors, Aileen Wuornos hitchhiked along as he was painting his front porch. His Florida’s freeways. She killed seven 15-year-old son had gone to get a haircut men after having had sex with them. one Saturday morning. That was the last • The serial killer with the most victims time he saw his son alive. The police re- appears to be Harold Shipman, a fused to investigate. They insisted that his physician in Manchester, England. son had run away. On a city map, I plotted From 1977 to 2000, during house calls the locations of the homes of the local Shipman gave lethal injections to 230 murder victims. Many clustered around the to 275 of his elderly female patients. homes of the teenage killers. • In 2009, Anthony Sowell of Cleveland, I decided to spend my coming sabbati- Ohio, was discovered living with elev- cal writing a novel on this case. To get into en decomposing bodies of women he the minds of the killers, I knew that I would had raped and strangled. have to “become” them day after day. Corll kept a piece of plywood in his apartment. Is serial murder more common now Ted Bundy is shown here with his defense In each of its corners, he had cut a hole. than it used to be? Not likely. In the past, attorney, when he was on trial in Miami for He and the boys would spread-eagle their killing two college students. You can get a police departments had little communica- handcuffed victims on this board, torturing glimpse of his charm and wit and how, like tion with one another, and seldom did them for hours. Sometimes, they would most serial killers, he blended in with society. anyone connect killings in different juris- even pause to order pizza. As such details Bundy was executed for his murders. dictions. Today’s more efficient commu- emerged, I became uncertain that I could nications, investigative techniques, and recover psychologically from months-on immersion into torture DNA matching make it easier for the police to know when a and human degradation, and I decided not to write the book. serial killer is operating in an area. Part of the perception that My interviews confirmed what has since become com- there are more serial killers today is also due to ignorance of mon knowledge about serial killers: They lead double lives so our history: In our frontier past, for example, serial killers went successfully that their friends and family are unaware of their from ranch to ranch. criminal activities. Henley’s mother swore to me that her son couldn’t possibly be guilty—he was a good boy. Some of El-

mer’s high school friends told me that that his being involved For↑ Your Consideration in homosexual rape and murder was ridiculous—he was Do you think that serial killers should be given the death interested only in girls. I was interviewing them in Henley’s penalty? Why or why not? How do your social locations influ- bedroom, and for proof they pointed to a pair of girls’ panties ence your opinion? that were draped across a lamp shade.

The execution of prisoners stopped—but not for long. The states wrote new laws, and in 1977 they again began to execute prisoners. Since then, 65 percent of those put to death have been white and 35 percent African American (Statistical Abstract 2011: Table 349). (Latinos are evidently counted as whites in this statistic.) While living on death row is risky for anyone, the risk is higher for African Americans and Latinos who killed whites. They are more likely to be executed (Jacobs et al. 2007). The most accurate predictor of

What do you think the penalty for serial killers should be? Why? LO

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Figure 6.4 Executions in the United States Executions since 1977, when the death penalty was reinstated.

States without death WA penalty 4 VTVT 0 ME States with death MT ND 0 OR 3 0 penalty that have not MN NH 0 2 executed anyone ID 0 WI NY MA 0 SD 1 0 MI 0 RI 0 1 States with death WY 0 CT 1 penalty 1 PA IA 3 NJ 0 NV NE 0 OH 12 UT 3 IL IN DE 14 33 WV CA 6 CO 12 20 MD 5 0 VA 13 1 KS MO KY 105 DC 0 0 67 3 NC TN 6 43 AZ OK SC 23 NM 91 AR 1 27 42 AL GA MS 46 10 44 TX LA 447 27 Highest Number of Executions AK FL 68 0 1. Texas (447)

HI 2. Virginia (105) 0 3. Oklahoma (91)

Source: By the author. Based on Statistical Abstract of the United States 2011:Table 350.

who will be put to death, though, is somewhat surprising: Those who have the least edu- cation are the most likely to be executed (Karamouzis and Harper 2007). On Table 6.4 on the next page, you can see the race–ethnicity of the prisoners who are on death row. Legal Change

Did you know that it is a crime in Saudi Arabia for a woman to drive a car (Usher 2011)? A crime in Florida to sell alcohol before 1 p.m. on Sundays? Or illegal in Wells, Maine, to advertise on tombstones? As has been stressed in this chapter, deviance, including the form called crime, is so relative that it varies from one society to another and from one group to another within the same society. Crime also varies from one time period to another, as opin- ions change, as different groups gain access to power, or as we discuss in the following Thinking Critically section as technology changes.

Thinking Critically Sexting

our eighth-grade girls were having a sleepover. As they talked about how they could impress the boys they were interested in, they came up with an idea. They took off their Fclothes, covered themselves with whipped cream, and sent pictures to boys of themselves licking it off. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but the girls didn’t think so the next day. As they walked to class, the boys stood around leering, laughing, and holding up the girls’ images on their cell phones. The boys who received the images had forwarded them to their friends—who forwarded them to their friends, and so on.

What bias in the application of the death penalty led to it being declared unconstitutional? LO

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Table 6.4 The Race–Ethnicity of the 3,316 Prisoners Figure 6.5 Who Gets on Death Row Executed? Gender Bias in Percentage Capital Punishment on Death Row in U.S. Population 99.1% Whites 44% 67% African Americans 41% 13% Latinos 12% 14% Asian Americans 1% 4% Native Americans 1% 1%

Source: By the author. Based on Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 2010: Table 6.80 and Figure 9.5 of this text.

Even some parents received the photos on their cell phones, and, as they say, then all hell broke loose. Sexting, sending sexually explicit text or images electronically, is a new crime brought about by changing technology, and it is giving lawmakers and enforcers a hard time. Not to mention teenagers. If two people over the age of 18 send sexually explicit messages to one another, this is a matter between them. If someone forwards those images, it is still a problem between those individuals. But people under the age of 18 are legally minors, and their sexually explicit photos are classified by law as child pornography. And what should law enforcers do? If they learn about sexting by minors, can they just ignore it? No, because they are sworn to uphold the law, and sexting comes under the law. And those who are convicted—both those who send the messages and those who pass them on to others—are guilty of producing or disseminating child pornogra- phy. So let’s prosecute, say some district attorneys. And those who are convicted will have to register as sex offenders for decades! “Absolutely ridiculous,” reply other district attorneys, teachers, and parents. “This is just kids having misguided fun. Let’s just teach the kids that they are being foolish and irresponsible.” “You’re all getting excited about nothing,” says one 17-year-old girl. “You’re overlooking the positive side to sexting. You can’t get pregnant from it, and you can’t transmit STDs. It’s a kind of safe sex.” Lawmakers and enforcers are grappling with sexting. Some think that the current laws are good enough, but the general consensus seems to be that the laws passed to prohibit child pornography don’t apply to this new behavior. Most proposals for legal change center around educational programs and community service for minors who transmit images of “sexually explicit conduct.” Then, of course, there is the more severe penalty—banning the offenders from using cell phones.

For↑ Your Consideration 0.9% Do you think there should be any sanctions for sexting by minors, or should this be a private matter, much as it is for adults? If you think there should be sanctions, which ones? The 5,004 43 same ones for sexters age 13 and age 17? The same sanctions for nudity and for the depic- Men Women tion of activities like penetration, sadism, and masturbation? n Source: By the author. Based on Statistical Abstract of the United States 2011: Source: Based on “What They’re Saying…” 2011; Hoffman 2011. Table 349.

The Medicalization of Deviance: Mental Illness

When the woman drove her car into the river, drowning her two small children strapped to their little car seats, people said that she had “gone nuts,” “went bonkers,” and just plain “lost it” because of her problems.

How are the sexting laws an example of an evolving criminal justice system?

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Neither Mental Nor Illness? When people cannot find a satisfying explana- tion for why someone does something weird or is “like that,” they often say that a “sickness in the head” is causing the unacceptable behavior. To medicalize some- thing is to make it a medical matter, to classify it as a form of illness that properly belongs in the care of physicians. For the past hundred years or so, especially since the time of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), the Viennese physician who founded psychoanalysis, there has been a growing tendency toward the medicalization of deviance. In this view, deviance, including crime, is a sign of mental sickness. Rape, murder, stealing, cheating, and so on are external symptoms of internal disorders, consequences of a confused or tortured mind, one that should be treated by mental health experts. Thomas Szasz (1986, 1996, 1998), a renegade in his profession of psychiatry, disagrees. He argues that what are called mental illnesses are neither mental nor illnesses. They are simply problem behaviors. Szasz breaks these behaviors for which we don’t have a ready explanation into two causes: physical illness and learned deviance. Some behaviors that are called “mental illnesses” have physical causes. That is, some- thing in an individual’s body results in unusual perceptions or behavior. Some depres- sion, for example, is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, which can be treated by drugs. The behaviors that are associated with depression—crying, long-term sad- ness, and lack of interest in family, work, school, or grooming—are only symptoms of a physical problem. Attention-deficit disorder (ADD) is an example of a new “mental illness” that has come out of nowhere. As Szasz says, “No one explains where this disease came from or why it didn’t exist 50 years ago. No one is able to diagnose it with objective tests.” ADD is diag- nosed because a teacher or parent is complaining about a child misbehaving. Misbehaving children have been a problem throughout history, but now, with doctors looking to expand their territory, this problem behavior has become a sign of “mental illness” that they can treat. All of us have troubles. Some of us face a constant barrage of problems as we go through life. Most of us continue the struggle, perhaps encouraged by relatives and friends or motivated by jobs, family responsibilities, religious faith, and life goals. Even when the odds seem hopeless, we carry on, not perfectly, but as best we can. Some people, however, fail to cope well with life’s challenges. Overwhelmed, they become depressed, uncooperative, or hostile. Some strike out at others; and some, in Merton’s terms, become retreatists and withdraw into their apartments or homes, refusing to come out. These are behaviors, not mental illnesses, stresses Szasz. They may be inap- propriate ways of coping, but they are behaviors, not mental illnesses.Szasz concludes that “mental illness” is a myth foisted on a naïve public. Our medical profession uses pseudo- scientific jargon that people don’t understand so it can expand its area of control and force nonconforming people to accept society’s definitions of “normal.” Szasz’s controversial claim forces us to look anew at the forms of deviance People whose behaviors violate norms often are called mentally ill. “Why that we usually refer to as mental illness. To explain behavior that people find else would they do such things?” bizarre, he directs our attention not to causes hidden deep within the “sub- is a common response to deviant conscious” but, instead, to how people learn such behaviors. To ask, “What is behaviors that we don’t understand. the origin of someone’s inappropriate or bizarre behavior?” then becomes Mental illness is a label that contains similar to asking, “Why do some women steal?” “Why do some men the assumption that there is something wrong “within” rape?” “Why do some teenagers cuss their parents and stalk out of people that “causes” their the room, slamming the door?” The answers depend on those people’s disapproved behavior. The particular experiences in life, not on an illness in their minds. In surprise with this man, short, some sociologists find Szasz’s renegade analysis refreshing who changed his legal because it indicates that social experiences, not some illness of the name to “Scary Guy,” is that he speaks at schools mind, underlie bizarre behaviors—as well as deviance in general. across the country, The Homeless Mentally Ill where he promotes acceptance, awareness, Jamie was sitting on a low wall surrounding the landscaped courtyard love, and understanding. of an exclusive restaurant. She appeared unaware of the stares elicited by

What is the medicalization of deviance? What is the argument that mental illnesses are problem behaviors, not mental illnesses?

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her layers of mismatched clothing, her matted hair and dirty face, and the shopping cart that overflowed with her meager possessions. After sitting next to Jamie for a few minutes, I saw her point to the street and concen- trate, slowly moving her finger horizontally. I asked her what she was doing. “I’m directing traffic,” she replied. “I control where the cars go. Look, that one turned right there,” she said, now withdrawing her finger. “Really?” I said. After a while she confided that her cart talked to her. “Really?” I said again. “Yes,” she replied. “You can hear it, too.” At that, she pushed the shopping cart a bit. “Did you hear that?” she asked. When I shook my head, she demonstrated again. Then it hit me. She was referring to the squeaking wheels! I nodded. When I left Jamie, she was pointing to the sky, for, as she told me, she also controlled the flight of airplanes. To most of us, Jamie’s behavior and thinking are bizarre. They simply do not match any reality we know. Could you or I become like Jamie? Suppose for a bitter moment that you are homeless and have to live on the streets. You have no money, no place to sleep, no bathroom. You do not know if you are going to eat, much less where. You have no friends or anyone you can trust. You live in constant fear of rape and other violence. Do you think this might be enough to drive you over the edge? Consider just the problems involved in not having a place to bathe. (Shelters are often so dangerous that many homeless people prefer to sleep in public settings.) At first, you try to wash in the restrooms of gas stations, bars, the bus station, or a shop- ping center. But you are dirty, and people stare when you enter and call the manage- ment when they see you wash your feet in the sink. You are thrown out and told in no uncertain terms never to come back. So you get dirtier and dirtier. Eventually, you come to think of being dirty as a fact of life. Soon, maybe, you don’t even care. The stares no longer bother you—at least not as much. Mental illness is common among the No one will talk to you, and you withdraw more and more into yourself. You begin to homeless. This photo was taken in New York City, but it could have been build a fantasy life. You talk openly to yourself. People stare, but so what? They stare any- taken in any large city in the United way. Besides, they are no longer important to you. States. Jamie might be mentally ill. Some organic problem, such as a chemi- cal imbalance in her brain, might underlie her behavior. But perhaps not. How long would it take you to exhibit bizarre behaviors if you were home- less—and hopeless? The point is that living on the streets can cause mental illness—or whatever we want to label socially inappropriate behaviors that we find difficult to classify.Homelessness and mental illness are recipro- cal: Just as “mental illness” can cause homelessness, so the trials of being homeless, of living on cold, hostile streets, can lead to unusual thinking and behaviors.

The Need for a More Humane Approach As Durkheim (1895/1964: 68) pointed out, deviance is inevitable—even in a group of saints. Imagine a society of saints, a perfect cloister of exemplary individuals. Crimes, properly so called, will there be unknown; but faults which appear invisible to the layman will create there the same scandal that the ordinary offense does in ordinary society. With deviance inevitable, one measure of a society is how it treats its deviants. Our prisons certainly don’t say much good about U.S. society. Filled with the poor, uneducated, and unskilled, they are warehouses

How are homelessness and mental illness reciprocal (each contributing to the other)?

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of the unwanted. White-collar criminals continue to get by with a slap on the wrist while street criminals are punished severely. Some deviants, who fail to meet cur- rent standards of admission to either prison or mental hospital, take refuge in shel- ters, as well as in cardboard boxes tucked away in urban recesses. Although no one has the answer, it does not take much reflection to see that there are more humane approaches than these. Because deviance is inevitable, the larger issues are to find ways to protect people from deviant behaviors that are harmful to themselves or others, to tolerate those ­behaviors that are not harmful, and to develop systems of fairer treatment for deviants.­ In the absence of fundamental changes that would bring about an equitable social ­system, most efforts are, unfortunately, like putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound. What we need is a more humane social system, one that would prevent the social inequalities that are the focus of the next four chapters.

Ch apter 6 Summary and Review What Is Deviance? Labeling theory focuses on how labels (names, reputa- Deviance (the violation of norms) is relative. What people tions) help to funnel people into or divert them away from consider deviant varies from one culture to another and from deviance. People often use techniques of neutralization to group to group within the same society. As symbolic inter- deflect social norms. Pp. 6-9–6-12. actionists stress, it is not the act, but the reactions to the act, that make something deviant. All groups develop systems of The Functionalist Perspective social control to punish deviants—those who violate their norms. Pp. 6-4–6-6. How do functionalists explain deviance? How do sociological and individualistic Functionalists point out that deviance, including criminal acts, is functional for society. Functions include affirming explanations of deviance differ? norms and promoting social unity and social change. Ac- To explain why people deviate, sociobiologists and psy- cording to strain theory, societies socialize their members chologists look for reasons within the individual, such into desiring cultural goals. Many people are unable to as genetic predispositions or personality disorders. achieve these goals in socially acceptable ways—that is, by Sociologists, in contrast, look for explanations outside the institutionalized means. Deviants, then, are people who individual, in social experiences. Pp. 6-6–6-7. either give up on the goals or use disapproved means to attain them. Merton identified five types of responses to The Symbolic Interactionist cultural goals and institutionalized means: conformity, Perspective innovation, ritualism, retreatism, and rebellion. Illegitimate opportunity theory stresses that some people have easier How do symbolic interactionists access to illegal means of achieving goals. Pp. 6-13–6-18. explain deviance? Symbolic interactionists have developed several theories to The Conflict Perspective explain deviance such as crime, the violation of norms that are written into law. According to differential association How do conflict theorists explain deviance? theory, people learn to deviate by associating with others. Conflict theorists take the position that the group in According to control theory, each of us is propelled toward power imposes its definitions of deviance on other groups. deviance, but most of us conform because of an effective From this perspective, the law is an instrument of oppres- system of inner and outer controls. People who have less sion used by the powerful to maintain their position of effective controls deviate. Pp. 6-7–6-9. privilege. The ruling class, which developed the criminal

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justice system, uses it to punish the crimes of the poor What is the medicalization of deviance? while diverting its own criminal activities away from this The medical profession has attempted to medicalize punitive system. Pp. 6-18–6-20. many forms of deviance, claiming that they represent mental illnesses. Thomas Szasz disagrees, asserting that Reactions to Deviance they are problem behaviors, not mental illnesses. The What are common reactions to deviance situation of homeless people indicates that problems in in the United States? living can lead to bizarre behavior and thinking. Pp. 6-27–6-29. In following a “get-tough” policy, the United States has imprisoned millions of people. African Americans and Latinos make up a disproportionate percentage of U.S. What is a more humane approach? prisoners. The death penalty shows biases by geography, Deviance is inevitable, so the larger issues are to find social class, gender, and race–ethnicity. In line with ways to protect people from deviance that harms conflict theory, as groups gain political power, their themselves and others, to tolerate deviance that is not views are reflected in the criminal code. Sexting legisla- harmful, and to develop systems of fairer treatment for tion was considered in this context. Pp. 6-20–6-27. deviants. Pp. 6-29–6-30.

Thinking Critically about Chapter 6 etiquette, or speech. What was the reaction? Why do you think people reacted like that? What was your response 1. Select some deviance with which you are personally famil- to their reactions? iar. (It does not have to be your own—it can be some- thing that someone you know did.) Choose one of the 3. What do you think should be done about the U.S. three theoretical perspectives to explain what happened. crime problem? What sociological theories support your view? 2. As explained in the text, deviance can be mild. Recall some instance in which you broke a social rule in dress,

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